Edge of Survival Read Online Free PDF Page A

goose bumps rising on his flesh where the wind licked his wet skin.
    A caribou dipped its heavy rack toward the water, satisfying its thirst before ambling toward the great herd. Summers here burst with life in a brief flash of startling energy. It was the long winters that crushed the soul—the frigid temperatures, the relentless isolation.
    He gathered kindling and started a fire. He’d burn them, even though they were good clothes—just because she was a greedy, lying little whore. He hesitated and the tiny flicker of flame died on the breeze.
    What if she hadn’t been lying?
    His heart stuttered.
    He frowned and struck another spark, fed this flame with dried leaves and dead grass. She’d only ever been good for whoring, but what if, this time, she’d been telling the truth?
    He sighed. He needed to check it out.
    He positioned small branches on the fire, building the blaze until it spat hot sparks and gave out a fierce roar.
    Long ago he’d loved a woman but she’d moved south. He squeezed his eyes shut on a lifetime of longing. He picked up his damp clothes and started feeding them to the hungry flames. A wolf howled far in the distance, taunting him with melancholy. Soon he’d be rich and he’d buy himself all the company a man could want. He squeezed his fists into gnarly knots as the orange flames ate the bloodstains. No stupid drunken hooker was going to take that away from him.
    ***
    It was after 11 p.m. and Cam couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw that woman’s vampire-white face contrasting vividly with the crimson splatter of blood down her front. Getting out of bed, she pulled on workout gear and grabbed a bottle of water.
    The top bunk was empty. Vikki had gone off with the first mate for a tour of the bridge, charming everyone who possessed dangling genitalia with her Colgate smile and Clairol streaks. Usually it made Cam smile. Whatever else she thought of the girl she’d known for over a decade, Vikki had never poached her boyfriends, not even her ex-fiancé Dean. More surprising since it had turned out Dean had a penchant for cheating with cheap blondes.
    Fact was, Vikki was probably getting down and dirty with Daniel Fox right now, and that disturbed her in a way she’d never experienced before. Cam tried not to think about it as she headed down two levels into the bowels of the ship and began searching the narrow corridors for the gym. She’d been trying not to think about it the whole time she’d lain awake in her bunk. She wasn’t interested in that guy any more than she was interested in Dwight Wineberg, the mine foreman. Fox was hot, but so was an active volcano, and she was in no rush to get too close to one of those either.
    She found the gym, last on the left in the bow of the ship, and slipped her hands over cold metal and turned the handle. The lights were blazing inside, thank God, because she didn’t think she’d enter a dark room again anytime soon. She blinked in surprise because—wouldn’t you know it?—she wasn’t alone, and of all the sixty-six guys and three women aboard this ship, here was the absolute last one she wanted to see.
    At least he was alone.
    Daniel wore shorts and a damp T-shirt as he sat doing bicep curls, his body more hard-packed and muscular than she’d appreciated earlier. Sweat made his short hair lie flat against his scalp.
    “I didn’t know you’d be here.” Jeez . She hadn’t felt this sort of emotional jumble since her hormone-ridden teenage angst. But she didn’t want him thinking she’d followed him down here like some optimistic groupie. Dean had taught her all about groupies.
    “Come in. I don’t bite—usually.” His eyes glittered as he worked the bar.
    She didn’t understand him. Although a loner by all accounts, he obviously liked women. In the canteen she’d watched him go from staring at Vikki as if he was already inside her to charming the enormous pants off the two hundred and fifty-pound mentally